Cheryl St. John

by The Mistaken Widow

  Milos approached Nicholas’s desk. “This case against Claire isn’t just about her,” he said, his penetrating eyes seeking confirmation on his friend’s face. “This distrust is more about Stephen, about your disapproval and your lack of respect for him. He could have married an Eastern socialite with a dowry, and you’d have found reason to disapprove.”

  “That’s not so.”

  “It is so. And if you’d look past Halliday Iron long enough, you’d see it.”

  “You don’t have to tell me the mistakes I made with Stephen,” he said, his voice carefully controlled. “I’d like nothing better than to go back and change those things. But I can’t do that.”

  “No. Once we’ve made our mistakes, there’s no taking them back,” Milos agreed. “So don’t make a bigger one with Claire.”

  Nicholas absorbed those words, his anger abating. If anyone but Milos had said them he’d have thrown him from his office. Milos knew that. And in order to speak with such candor, he obviously trusted the strength of their friendship.

  “Point taken,” Nicholas conceded. “And while we’re at it, let me give you some advice: Don’t let yourself make a big mistake with her, either.”

  Milos seemed to think about that, as if wondering exactly what that mistake would be. He nodded thoughtfully on his way back to his desk.

  Nicholas returned to his mail, intent on thinking about work and not Claire for the rest of the day. Milos had made some strong points. But of course his feelings about Stephen influenced his reaction to Claire. Stephen’s choices had never been the best ones for Halliday Iron. Nicholas couldn’t be expected to overlook all of that and blindly accept this last and most outrageous choice.

  Claire had certainly found an ally, though, hadn’t she? He hoped his forewarning was enough to keep Milos from championing her cause to the point of interfering with their professional relationship.

  The thought set off yet another warning bell. If she was devious enough to use Milos to her advantage, he stood to lose even more. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Another thought insinuated itself into his conscience. He’d been foolish enough to kiss her, but he’d been wise enough to steel himself against his own reactions and remind himself who she was and what he stood to lose. But kissing her could easily make any man her ally.

  Had she kissed Milos like that, too?

  The Coughlins’ home was every bit as elegantly appointed as the Hallidays’; however, a woman’s hand was more visible in the touches of color and grace. The luncheon was held in a sun-splashed music room where lacy ferns in enormous jardinieres and hanging begonias lent a rich-scented outdoor feel.

  Elizabeth introduced Sarah to each of the women as they arrived. Each one expressed her sympathy and greeted Sarah warmly. Apparently the Halliday name and the association with the Coughlins were direct links to social acceptance.

  She sipped tea, visited and for the first time had an opportunity to speak to other women about nursing babies and raising children. For a few short hours, she forgot her situation and felt like any young mother out for an afternoon’s social activities.

  Their guest speaker was from the Ladies’ Aid Society. She spoke on the many needs in their community, and how each donation of time and money would be put to use. She described a steel worker who had been placed out of work recently, and whose wife was now ill. More than funds, help cooking and caring for their children was desperately needed.

  Could this be the same steel worker she’d overheard Nicholas telling Gruver about? The same one Nicholas had sent provisions to? Halliday Iron wasn’t the only iron works in the valley.

  After the speech, Sarah drew the woman aside. “One of Nicholas’s workers was injured,” she said, “His name is Crane.”

  Phoebe Graham nodded. “The very one I spoke of. My maid tells me his wife is now quite ill.”

  Sarah didn’t have funds of her own to donate, but she had time. Especially in the afternoons when William took his longest nap. Immediately she remembered wishing she could repay Stephen’s kindness by using his own advice: Just do a good turn for someone else.

  “Could you give me the address?” she asked. “I’d like to make a trip to the Cranes’ myself.”

  “I’ll send a messenger with it this evening,” Mrs. Graham promised.

  Sarah thanked her. She was sure if Nicholas had known about the Crane woman’s illness he would have sent someone. His concern with his workers was one of his best qualities.

  That evening at dinner Nicholas related an upcoming event.

  “Three of my business associates and their wives will be staying with us for about a week. I expect you to make the arrangements for their stay.” He raised a brow at Sarah. “Plan an evening’s entertainment, as well. Quinn Kleymann is an important stockbroker. Monty Gallamore and Sherwood McCaul are two of our biggest buyers.”

  She nodded and glanced at Leda. The woman smiled encouragingly. “You’ll like them, dear. And I will help.”

  Sarah turned back to Nicholas and replied, “I will handle the preparations.”

  As soon as Nicholas excused himself and left the table, Sarah turned to Leda. “Will we need to hire extra staff for that week?”

  Leda confirmed her thoughts.

  “I’ll handle that, and I’ll work with Mrs. Pratt on menus this evening, but I have something I need to do tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Oh?”

  She explained about the Crane woman.

  “Claire, darling, please don’t take any chances with your own health and safety. Nicholas can send someone over.”

  “No, no, you have nothing to worry about. I’ve been trying to figure out some way to help more, and—”

  “But you’re a tremendous help to me.”

  “I’m afraid Nicholas doesn’t see it that way. This is something I need to do.”

  Leda gave her an uncertain look, but she nodded. “Do what you feel you must.”

  Impulsively, Sarah leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “And you leave the evening’s entertainment to me. I’ll think of something lovely.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  They smiled at one another affectionately.

  Gruver came for her at precisely twelve-fifteen, just as she’d asked. He knew the area the Cranes lived in, delivered her to their door and assisted her to the ground. “Mr. Halliday won’t be needing me until late. I can wait for you.”

  She surveyed the row of shacklike cabins with a shiver of unease. The yards were relatively tidy, and the meager structures themselves in good repair, but she’d lived her whole life in luxury and had never seen homes so obviously poor.

  “I don’t want you to spend your whole afternoon waiting,” she said. “Just let me make sure this is the right place.”

  “It’s safe, Mrs. Halliday,” Gruver said, assuring her. “I wouldn’t leave you off anywhere I thought something would happen to you.”

  Sarah made her way along the dirt path to the cabin. A window box beneath each of the two front windows held an assortment of spindly red and yellow flowers. She knocked on the weathered door.

  A small child appeared in the crack that opened. “Yeah?”

  “Hello there. Is this Thomas Crane’s house?”

  “My pa cain’t get ’round just yet,” he said.

  “I know. That’s why I’m here. Is—is your mother here, please?”

  “Mama’s abed sick. If you got wash, you can take it to the Paulsons’. It’s down there a ways. They’s a stump in the yard.”

  “No, I don’t have wash. I came to help your mother.” She turned to Gruver, who was watching curiously, and called, “Come back at four.”

  He saluted his understanding, and pulled the carriage away.

  Sarah stepped past the little boy guarding the door. He took on a startled expression and ran into the room to stand by a man reclining on a lumpy sofa, his shirt opened enough to reveal the bandages encasing his ribs. His right arm was wrapped and supported by a sli
ng.

  The man looked up at her with the same shocked expression the boy had worn.

  “Mr. Crane? I’m S—” She caught herself. “I’m Claire Halliday. I’ve come to do whatever I can to help.”

  “Halliday?” he asked, his dark eyebrows climbing to the middle of his lined forehead.

  “Yes. Nicholas’s sister-in-law.”

  “I’m sorry about your husband, Mrs. Halliday,” he said with a nod.

  “Thank you. Where’s your wife?”

  “In the bedroom there. The oldest took her some tea before she left, but Mary wouldn’t hear of her missin’ any more school, so she sent her off.”

  Sarah removed her velvet cape and hung it beside a threadbare jacket and a homemade shawl on hooks beside the door. She entered the bedroom.

  At her approach Mary Crane opened deep brown eyes wide, and Sarah introduced herself. A baby about a year old pulled himself to stand in an iron crib against one wall, and the strong smell of urine hit Sarah.

  An older child, a girl of about three, played on the floor.

  “Has Dr. Barnes been here?” she asked the woman.

  “Yes. He gave me something to help with my stomach. I just pray David doesn’t get it.” She glanced toward the wide-eyed baby.

  “Can you eat?” Sarah asked.

  “Maybe. The tea stayed down this morning.”

  “I’ll fix you some lunch and some fresh tea, and then I’ll clean up David and take the children out for some air. What’s your name, sweetie?”

  The little girl stood, stuck a finger in her mouth and said around it, “Elissa.”

  Sarah searched the cupboards, finding adequate supplies. Nicholas had indeed seen to it that the Cranes’ stores were set by. It appeared that very little had been used, however, since neither Tom nor Mary was up to cooking.

  Sarah hadn’t had a whole lot of practice herself, but she managed a hot meal for the family. Afterward, she bathed the baby, changed his bedding and sent Alex, the boy who’d answered the door, to the Paulsons’ with the soiled sheets.

  “You take in laundry?” she asked Mary as she fitted clean sheets on all the beds.

  “I haven’t been able to for several days,” she said from the chair where she waited for Sarah to finish with her bed. “Mr. Halliday sent food, but we still have bills to pay. Our rent comes due the first.”

  Sarah couldn’t imagine how much one paid for rent of such a pitiful dwelling, but obviously it was a great deal to the Cranes, and it was their home, no matter how humble.

  “You just concern yourself with getting well, and don’t worry about that right now,” she said gently, and helped Mary back into the bed and tucked covers around her. She was almost certain the Ladies’ Aid Society planned to do something about that. At least she assumed that was what Phoebe Graham’s plea for funds was all about Mary’s eyes closed almost immediately.

  “Thank you. Mrs. Halliday,” Tom said as she donned her cape and prepared to leave. “I thank you especially for helping my Mary.”

  She waved to the children and limped to where Gruver had the carriage waiting.

  The following day Sarah sent all the Cranes’ laundry to the Paulsons’, appalled that the family had so few changes. As she washed their lunch dishes and prepared a meal to leave for their dinner, she thought of all Claire’s dresses hanging in the armoire back at the house—dresses that Sarah would never wear, and that would eventually be discarded.

  The day after, Penelope, Gruver’s wife, helped her pack them all, and Gruver unloaded them in the Cranes’ living room. By then Mary was getting around, and she touched the garments with reverence.

  “You sure don’t want these beautiful gowns, Mrs. Halliday?” she asked, her eyes bright.

  “Call me…Claire. They’re inappropriate for a widow,” she said. Actually they were inappropriate for anyone, but she didn’t voice that opinion. Mary had to notice. “You can take them apart and use the fabric for anything you like.”

  “I’ll enjoy that more than you know,” Mary said gratefully.

  After three days of helping the Cranes all afternoon, hurrying home to feed William, and then working on the plans for guests, Sarah nearly groaned when she saw Nicholas had brought Milos to dinner one evening. She hurried to tell Mrs. Pratt to set another place.

  The men politely included the women in the dinner conversation, something Sarah was unaccustomed to with her father and his cronies. She tried to keep her end of the conversation going, but weariness got the best of her.

  “Are we boring you, Claire?”

  She snapped her head up, and heat rose in her cheeks. “Not at all.”

  She’d brought William down with her, and Leda had lifted him from his bassinet and now held him against her breast. She turned him to face the men. “Claire’s simply tired, darling. It’s not easy to do as many things as she does during the day and get up with a baby in the middle of the night. You’ll soon be sleeping through, though, won’t you, William?”

  She kissed the top of his head, adoringly.

  “You exhaust yourself during the day, do you?” Nicholas asked, a derisive grin curling one side of his mouth. “The dinner menus have been very good, but hardly a debilitating task.”

  Sarah gave Leda a placating look. She hadn’t revealed to Nicholas where she’d been spending her afternoons, and for some reason she wanted to keep it to herself. “If there’s more you’d like done, all you have to do is ask,” she said obligingly.

  “As long as Mother is rested and happy, that’s all I care,” he replied in a placating tone. “And she tells me you’ve taken over many of her tasks.”

  Sarah glanced at Milos. She shouldn’t have been embarrassed—after all, he was a close friend of the family—but she wished he hadn’t heard Nicholas’s demeaning tone.

  Milos lent her one of his generous smiles, however, bolstering her spirits.

  A screech sounded from the kitchen just then, followed by the clatter of metal.

  “I’ll see to that, sir.” Mrs. Pratt, who’d been arranging a tray on one of the sideboards, hurried through the swinging door.

  Leda paid her no mind, enraptured with the smiles she was coaxing from William, but Nicholas immediately stood and followed the maid into the servants’ hall.

  “Excuse me,” Sarah said to Milos, then pushed back her chair and rushed to the kitchen on Nicholas’s heels.

  Laughter erupted and Mrs. Pratt shushed and waved her arms in warning. Sarah peered around Nicholas’s broad shoulder and caught sight of the tumble of wet skirts and pant legs on the drenched floor. Giggling and not seeing the other servant or their employer, Penelope wrenched away from where her husband had her pinned, grabbed a pan of suds that sat on a work surface and dumped the contents on Gruver.

  He sputtered, and roared with laughter, rising as if to retaliate. Penelope shrieked and turned to escape, seeing Nicholas and Sarah for the first time.

  The laughter died on her lips, her smile transformed to a wide-eyed expression of dismay.

  Gruver staggered to his feet and stood blinking. Soapsuds dripped from his face and clothing onto the soaked floor.

  “I—I beg your pardon, Mr. Halliday,” Penelope stammered.

  “The Hallidays have a dinner guest” Mrs. Pratt’s tone was scathing. “Your childish pranks are best saved for your own time and at the expense of your own quarters.” She turned to Nicholas. “Sir, I’ll handle this.”

  Nicholas didn’t say anything for heart-stopping seconds. Sarah could taste Penelope Gruver’s sudden fear. They had solid, well-paying jobs here, away from the toil and poverty of the iron workers. “Forgive us, Mr. Halliday,” she begged. “Gruver did a bit of celebrating this evening. It won’t happen again.”

  Gruver wore a repentant but silly expression, and his stance wasn’t all that steady.

  “What were you celebrating?” Nicholas asked, surprising not only Sarah but the others as well, judging by their expressions.

  “We’re going to h
ave another baby,” Gruver announced.

  Penelope’s face flamed a deeper shade of crimson. She tried to dry her hands on her soaked apron in a nervous gesture. In the tense silence her gaze flicked to Sarah and back to her employer.

  “Congratulations, then,” Nicholas said. Sarah wished she could see his face, but she held her position just behind him. He surprised her even more by stepping forward, the sole of his shiny black Wellington splatting in a puddle, and extending a hand to his driver.

  Gruver accepted it with a relieved grin. “Thank you.”

  “See to it she’s not the one who mops and dries this floor tonight.”

  “No, sir,” Gruver replied. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

  “And after you’re finished, come by my study for a cigar.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that.”

  “I think we’re ready for dessert, Mrs. Pratt,” Nicholas said, indicating to all of them that the discussion was finished and the issue settled.

  “Right away.” She scuttled toward the icebox.

  “Thank you, Mr. Halliday.” Penelope flashed a grateful smile before she gathered her wet skirts and stepped away.

  Nicholas turned back then, and discovered Sarah. He took her upper arm gently and led her into the short hallway that connected the kitchen and dining room.

  He stopped there, and Sarah, standing close, examined his odd expression.

  His dark eyes met hers. “Stephen used to do that.”

  “Used to do what?” she asked.

  He pursed his lips a second as if searching for the explanation, and gestured with a jerk of his hand toward the kitchen. “Play like that. Do silly things. Spontaneous outrageous things…and laugh.”

  “A good many people laugh,” she replied.

  “Do they?”

  The confusion in his eyes made the question more than just another of his cynical remarks. “Yes.”

  “I’ve never heard you laugh. I’ve never even seen you smile for that matter.”

  She could have said the same to him. But she didn’t. For some weighty, unexplainable reason, she didn’t. “Come some time when William is in his bath and see him splash Mrs. Trent. Or when he tries to study his own fists and only succeeds in crossing his eyes. You’ll hear me laugh.”